Citation and License

Nanoscale Research Letters 2012, 7:115
doi:10.1186/1556-276X-7-115

Published: 10 February 2012

Abstract

Aluminum nanocontact conductance histograms are studied experimentally from room temperature
up to near the bulk melting point. The dominant stable configurations for this metal
show a very early crossover from shell structures at low wire diameters to ionic subshell
structures at larger diameters. At these larger radii, the favorable structures are
temperature-independent and consistent with those expected for ionic subshell (faceted)
formations in face-centered cubic geometries. When approaching the bulk melting temperature,
these local stability structures become less pronounced as shown by the vanishing
conductance histogram peak structure.